I broke up with the Facebook because it just wasn't useful

A week ago, I looked at how I use the Internet weekly, daily and hourly. It looked like this:

• Facebook - hourly in that I at least looked at notifications and would share and post a lot other times;
• Blogger - once a month to post a blog post or two, usually about reading or geek stuff;
• Twitter - daily in order to find articles on topics I care about;
• Google+ - every second or third day to read topics I'm interested in and for sharing interesting articles;
• Flickr - weekly to upload pictures from my life that I want to share with loved ones;
• LinkedIn - every second or third day to find interesting things to read and participate in discussion groups. Also share interesting reading I have found and think others will like;
• Work email - week days at work but not outside work; and
• gmail - once or twice a day max and mainly for dealing with job related stuff.

Then I read a quote from Jason Yip on Twitter that said...

Worry less about "Are my feelings / Is my behaviour justified?"; worry more about "Are my feelings / Is my behaviour useful?".

That one tweet made me stop and reassess so much of who I am and what I currently do. So, I asked myself: When I use the Internet is my interaction useful?

• Facebook - No;
• Blogger - Yes;
• Twitter - Yes;
• Google+ - Sometimes;
• Flickr - Yes;
• LinkedIn - Yes;
• Work email - Absolutely; and
• gmail - Yes.

It took me less than ten minutes to then decide that I would do the following things:

• Stop using Facebook immediately and then delete my account if I didn't use it for 3 months;
• Remove Facebook, Twitter and Google+ apps from my phone and other mobile devices; and
• Log out of Twitter and Google+ and only log in when I explicitly wanted to use them.

For the first two days after stopping using it, I kept coming back to the same feelings and asked myself if the resulting reaction would be useful...

• Should I tell someone what I'm doing or feeling? Yes, but more specific people and not Facebook; and
• Should I check to see if anyone has sent me a message? No, they will contact me on my phone or via email if they need me.

After the initial habit change left me nervous and a little anxious, it all passed. Yes, I still use all the other sites with more intent than I did in the past but I don't use Facebook and I feel no need to.

Later on, I will write a more detailed post about why Facebook has irked me for the last 6-9 months and how that has aided in my persistence to not return. This is not the post for it. Again, would it be useful?

Wish me luck and if you can't find me online, you can find me on the end of a telephone.

The Monogram Murders

Book 21 of 2014 is The Monogram Murders NOT by Agatha Christie but by Sophie Hannah.

This is the first Hurcule Poirot novel that the Christie family has officially approved.

Having read every Agatha Christie novel ever before I was 18, I was very excited about this when I found it in the new books section of the ABC Shop.

Although the story is very much like a Hercule Poirot story, it was told with contempt for the little Belgian detective. Christie described him brutally sometimes but you knew she loved this character. The same love was not evident in this story.

It was ok and did keep me engaged. Each day at work, I'd be looking forward to going home so I could read more of the book. That is a real page turner but not a genuine Poirot page turner unfortunately.

My little great cells give this 3.5 murders in a hotel out of 5.

Should I read this? Absolutely, if you love Agatha Christie's Belgian detective. Let me know what you think.
What did I learn? That criticism can come across for contempt if you don't truly love your character.

The Wizard of Oz

Book 20 of 2014 is from the BFI Film Classics series and is a review by Salman Rushdie of the movie The Wizard of Oz. I'd call this an essay, more than a book but my only criteria to satisfy something is a book is if it looks like a book and quacks like a book.

In 69 pages, Salman Rushdie reviews the movie The Wizard of Oz in a way that has changed, ruined and enhanced my view of it.

He does this as the first part of a series of essays commissioned for a project by the National Film and Television Archive in the UK. This was before DVDs and IMDB and was a way of deconstructing and reviewing 360 classic movies by great minds of the time. When Rushdie looked through the list, he chose Oz as one of his favourite places as a child and decided to write about this movie.

Like anything you love that is deconstructed and discussed, some of the magic disappears but Rushdie's passion for the film and shared discovered facts compensate greatly.

The thing I did like the most was finding that this essay inspired Gregory Maguire's Wicked. I love the Oz world and Wicked continued for me, as this essay has extended it for me.

At the end of this essay, the author writes a fantastical story about the futuristic auctioning of the famous and obviously magical Ruby Slippers from the movie. There is a great quote that seems quite apt in this time...

"We, the public, are easily, lethally offended. We have come to think of taking offence as a fundamental right. We value very little more highly than our rage, which gives us, in our opinion, the moral high ground. From this high ground we can shoot down at our enemies and inflict heavy fatalities. We take pride in our short fuses. Our anger elevates, transcends. 

Salman Rushdie. At the auction of the ruby slippers. 
In: East, West. Vintage, 1995."

I give this a brain, a heart and some courage out of 5. Yes, that's a 3.5.

Should I read this? Read this if you love The Wizard of Oz movie. It would mean nothing otherwise.
What did I learn? Toto was female and her name was Terry.

A Room of One's Own

Book 19 of 2014 is Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own.

I've only read a couple of Virginia Woolf books and I love the way she writes. She is a born story teller who paints pictures with words. Now I know that she writes like a "woman-manly." Or was it a "man-womanly"? Either way, it makes her voice unique in a crowd where she is a minority.

This book/essay/speech is one of the most relevant (yes, even now) books that I woman can read.

Of late, life has had me wondering where I belong and what the whole damn point of it is. Belonging is important but it is more than that. The feeling was more about how I belong in a world where I can not see anyone like me. That was my mistake.

There may not be people who look like me everywhere but there are people who think like me, both men and women. This book was like taking a giant sigh after a very long week ends. She said it perfectly.

It is only 112 pages and if you can't do that then at least read the last chapter. She is brilliant. Just that.

I give it 5 revelations without bitterness out of 5.

Should I read this? Women should. Secure men should. Others will not be impressed that someone let her out of the kitchen.
What did I learn? “I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man; he has nothing to give me.”

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Book 18 of 2014 is one that i have read twice now. It is a favourite and often fits in to certain contexts in my life.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is the Milan Kundera book that you must read.

I most identify with Sabina and have been told she is dysfunctional. Maybe she is but boy does she look hot in a bowler hat.

I give it 4.5 extra-martial affairs out of 5.

Should I read this? Absolutely. A classic that you must consume, at least once.
What did I learn? Love is totally and absolutely unique to who you are. Let no one dictate otherwise.

Building Scalable Web Sites

The 17th book of 2014 is Building Scalable Web Sites by Cal Henderson.

I read this because a developer I really respect at Thoughtworks recommended it. The reviews I read ripped it to pieces with comments like "I already know this" and "well yeah, duh." I still read it.

Once thing that you have to do as a lead is understand concepts so well that you can explain and teach it to other people. The thing I've seen a lot is that people dismiss the small things, the concepts that matter and talk about big ideas while not understanding where it all comes from.

This book is a great way to understand the basic concepts and teach you how to teach others. It talks about where no mainstream software engineering concepts come from in a way that fills all the gaps.

If you want to claim you are a great senior software engineer then read this with a little humility. I will guarantee you learn something. Or at least learn how to teach it.

I'd give it 3.5 checkins out of 5.

Should I read this? Yes. Anyone who intends to lead a software team should read this whether they are technical of not.
What did I learn? Humility and the ability to articulate what is in your giant brain.

A Rightful Place

Book 16 of 2014: A Rightful Place is a Quarterly Essay by Noel Pearson. The Quarterly Essay is a series of four essays a year written by current key Australians.

After reading this, I wrote Noel Pearson an email. It went...

"Hello Mr Pearson,

I have never written to anyone of worth before so forgive any mistakes I make.

I just finished reading your Quarterly Essay. I am not indigenous to this country. In fact, I am half Australian and half Papua New Guinean but I write you all the same. There is something to not belonging that I empathise with when I read what you wrote. Something raw and true.

Having never been a fan of yours, it surprised me how much I understood what you said.

You see, I grew up on Palmerston in the Northern Territory in the mid 80s to 90s. My school was less than a quarter white and that didn't seem odd to me. We used the word budju as a compliment and c*nt as a disgrace. I even still return to my parents house speaking in that manic drawl that is Darwin. There is a part of me that is goanna cooked over a fire and peanut flavoured grubs out of trees.

When I read you essay, I found a way to articulate and (sadly because it is required) defend the people I grew up with. The most amazing and ancient culture we have on earth.

I lost respect for Darwin (again) and Dickens (for the first time) and got teary at your conclusion.

I write this email because I'd like to thank you for saying it so well. For articulating your plight in a way others haven't before or maybe not so well.

You won me over, sir.

I live in Canberra. If I can ever buy you dinner and have a conversation, I would be honoured.

Damana Madden - a black Darwin girl"

I'd give it 4 non-racist remarks out of 5.

Should I read this? If you get a chance, read this. As an Australian, you should.
What did I learn? There is a way to help our first people but it means giving them control over their life and not just participation in the process.

Leave it better than when you found it

I will always post too many quotes, too many pictures of cats doing cat things, too many shots of food as I make people wait to eat, too many posts of shoes and possibly too many photos of myself. You will hear my happiness most of the time but sometimes my sadness, my contemplation, my exasperation and my wonder. There will be inane questions and tipsy checkins. Maybe shallow ponderings and epics revelations. Some days I will make you cringe and other days I will make you smile.

Either way, this is me. We do this once. Just once. Really, only once. I shall do it my way. If you can live with that then... good. If not, so be it. I gave up on cool when I was 12 years old and have been happy ever since. Now, I just want to be kind to myself and those I care about. Let everything be what it is and be ok with that. Own my choices and their consequences. Live the best life I can while treading carefully.

That is me.

The Imagination of Readers

From a book I adore...

“After all, reading is arguably a far more creative and imaginative process than writing; when the reader creates emotion in their head, or the colors of the sky during the setting sun, or the smell of a warm summer’s breeze on their face, they should reserve as much praise for themselves as they do for the writer - perhaps more.”

- Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots

Being Born a Woman

“Being born a woman is an awful tragedy. Yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, bar room regulars—to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording—all is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yet, God, I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night.”

- Sylvia Plath

Something Broke

At the beginning of August, I was mugged. Violently and viciously.

I sat on a cold hospital emergency department bed for six hours trying to stay awake as they observed my concussion. As a kid, I remember having a concussion but that isn't what I remember. It happened when I high-sided on a push bike. There was this almost eternal moment as my body flew over the handle bars and in to the concrete, face first. That's what I remember. Not the details of the concussion but the details of the accident that caused it.

The whole mugging thing was very different to that childhood bike accident. It is remembered the other way around.

Since the mugger ran up behind me, I had no idea that it was coming. There was no anticipation and the associated fear flashbacks that come with that. It happened so fast that even as he pushed me to my knees and slammed my face in to the ground, I didn't have time to put my hands out to stop myself. 

One second I was standing. The next I was wiping blood out of my eyes.

In the 20-30 seconds it took the first person to come to my aid, my emotions ran from shock to terror and then to anger. Not anger as I thought I had known once or twice in my life but an irrational overwhelming anger that made me scream, swear like  a potty mouth and attack my attacker.

I hope to never feel that level of anger ever again in my life. It was accompanied by thoughts including telling myself that if he was going to rape me that he would have to knock me unconscious and I would fight him until he knocked me out. Luckily, it didn't come to that.

Fighting him was not a rational or aware thought. It was fight or flight and I couldn't get up off the ground with him standing on my stomach and pulling at my bag. In my normal mind, I would have let him take it but in this case I used his holding the bag as leverage to kick the hell out of him.

The oddest part of all of this is that I feel mortal. I always have but now I feel a raw kind of mortal. And I don't want to die because someone else decides it or because I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time or because of some disease. I want to die when I choose to.

I have never felt more sure of anything before. No one chooses how I live and no one chooses how I die.

Divergent - Insurgent - Allegiant

Books 13, 14 and 15 of 2014 are the Divergent trilogy.

The first book is Divergent, which has recently been made in to a movie. The movie is a shallow interpretation of the book. The first book is both good and bad. It is not the original tale that everyone claims it is but more a mix of Hunger Games and Harry Potter.

It is however easy to read and very entertaining.

Unlike Katniss Everdeen, Tris (the main protagonist) is a little too caught up in teenage love and self absorbtion for me. She does improve rapidly in the second and third books though so it is worth persisting.

The second book of the trilogy, Insurgent is less about action and more about character development. I actually wish they'd taken the time for that in the first book. It worries me that people will not continue on through the whole story because the first book is a little shallow. The second book makes it worth it. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the middle book more than the first and last. I've only ever felt that with Lord of the Rings. Think Helm's Deep.

Then the third in the series, Allegiant made me sad and happy. Finally, a story that ends in a non-Hollywood way and concretes this as a possible stayer for years to come.

Without giving too much away, I will say that this series is worth reading. It is dystopian, aimed at teenagers and therefore easy to consume and a gripping plot to keep you engaged.

I'd give it 3.5 punches in the face out of 5.

Should I read this? Yes. it is good fiction and entertaining.
What did I learn? "Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can't escape that damage. But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other."

When Depressed, Don't Be Strong For Others

I was mugged at 10:30pm-ish on a Tuesday night. An ambulance took me to hospital. I spent 6 hours sitting on a bed being observed for concussion. Not allowed to sleep. Not up for bothering anyone to tell them I was there. Not overly fussed about anything other than my iPhone going flat. Gawd, it got boring.

At 4:30am, I was allowed to leave. Still an outpatient in ED meant that I didn't even need to sign any paperwork. Just called a taxi and went home.

When I arrived home just before 5am, I facebooked that I had been violently mugged and had only now returned home. Then I crashed. Exhausted, I fell in to a deep sleep fully unaware of how many people were panicking. 100+ missed called and 212 text messages greeted me when I awoke on Wednesday morning.

As I scrolled through the plethora of contact, the phone rang. I hit ignore. Another person called, I ignored that too. Then my sister called. A single thought ran through my mind... "she won't make this about her. I won't have to make her feel better about this having happened to me."

That summed up the entire morning. I didn't have the energy to make other people feel ok about me being mugged. I'm sure they were calling because they cared but they were also calling for themselves.

I didn't have the strength to tell them how ok I was. To tell them how I'd be ok. To not cry or let them hear the waver in my voice. I just couldn't give that at the time.

It reminded me of something. When you are going through things, some people will come to you to find out if you are ok but they want you to say yes you are. They want to hear that it will all be ok and mostly for themselves. They aren't selfish or mean. They just can't see passed what they feel to what you are going through.

When this happens, you have every right to choose not to give them anything. You are within your rights to not give them the little you have left to let them know you are ok. Don't answer the phone to everyone. Answer to at least one person who won't make it about them. They are a valuable friend because they won't take from you.

It is ok to give that energy you have to yourself.

Retrospection brings Revelations

My mate Jim and I are doing Dry July. At a sober dinner and subsequent Koko Black chocolate inhalation session tonight, we had a mini retrospective. I just realised that it has only been 2.5 years since I moved out of my parent's house. I'd spent 3 years prior suffering clinical depression. It was so bad that my mother gave me two tasks in the day that were all I had to achieve: Make my bed and check the mail box for mail. Those two things would exhaust me. Some days I couldn't do one or both and I'd sob at my failure. Some days, I'd do both and we'd celebrate the success.

When I left Darwin at the very end of 2011, I wasn't quite sure if I'd be able to feed myself, work an entire 5 day week or stop myself crying if I ever started. Since then my failures have been vast but all lessons learnt. My heart has been broken once since but it kept beating. My brain chemistry has kicked my arse several times and I kicked it back.

I don't cry randomly anymore though. I don't wish to die. I pay my own bills and cook my own meals. I finally forgave myself for not being perfect. These are major achievements for me.

It has only been 2.5 years and I'm functioning quite well now. Even I'm impressed.

Thanks, Jim. You made me articulate it. This isn't an affirmation. This is surprise and pride mixed with slightly too much chocolate.

Confusion and Coffee

I often feel like an appropriate mix of comfortable conformism and antisocial complacent genius.

There is a constant struggle in my head around what I expect for myself and what I am not thoroughly convinced others want me to be. The latter is mostly imagined but it is still there. It doesn't make me change too much of who I am but more acts like a voice in my head that is unimpressed with my willingness to just give in and do as society tells me.

The thing is, I'm not really a bad arse or a rebel in any way. As a child and late in to my teens, I was the kind of girl who did what was expected of me. If my parents asked me to do something then I did it without question. I was a cluey kid and thought a lot about the world that I saw through fiction and no-fiction books. I did not however think much for myself.

The road was set out for me by my educated middle-class parents who I never for one moment doubted loved me dearly. First was primary school then high school and then a degree of my choosing. Something you could get a job in and that you enjoyed doing was the only real criteria I was given. I lived at home the whole time with my three square meals a day and all the comforts of my parents lifestyle.

I met my husband (now ex) outside a second year Discrete Maths class. He was geeky and kind. We talked about ideas and concepts and ideologies and literature and movies and music until we somehow got married 9 years later. In that almost-decade past, I did what was expected of me. Had the long term partner of equal intellect who loved me, two indoor pedigree cats that roamed our over-sized inner-city Canberra townhouse filled with expensive furniture and too much kitchenware. I threw lavish dinner parties with equivalent friends. I was friends with other couples with similar lives that validated my own. I wore an apron and baked. Enough said.

There are people I'm still friends with today who can vouch for the seemingly happy girl who had a pretty decent middle class life. I often wonder if they see me as the same type of person now as I was then or if they even saw me as happy. I thought I was happy. That I had everything a person could want.

Then it all went to shit.

My life fell apart through a series of inevitable miseries which I now see as a time of growth. Oh time, it is a friend and a brutal enemy. It helps you forget the pain but it gives you wrinkles. I'll accept the wrinkles as payment though.

The middle part (for those who didn't live through it with me on Facebook and Twitter) is a story for another time over several glasses of old Champagne that the waiter pours carefully so as not to waste a single drop.

The end part is now. Who I am now. What I am now. Those are not questions. There are solid answers. There are also solid uncertainties.

I have a good job that I love. Each morning I wake up enthusiastic about the coming workday. People joke that I am comfortable outside of my comfort zone and they are right. There is a comfortable thrill to the work I do but it is based in educated guesses and almost two decades of experience.

My ogre-like layered circle of friends are ordered and solid, if a little commutative. I am one of those lucky people who has a group of people who love me, despite knowing me. Some are so close that they will pick up the phone to me in tears or to me singing Pharrell or to me having butt dialled them because they are on speed dial and they won't hang up. Others interact with me at regular lunches or drinks or even via old fashioned Facebook stalking. Most don't live in the same town or country as me but those that do are people I can call on for mischief and adventures.

Then there is what I refer to as family. It isn't people I've given birth to. That really was never my thing. It is a Papua New Guinean definition of family. People who you are stuck with but actually like. That is my family. We support each other through everything. There is an unquestionable loyalty. I often joke that if my sister dislikes someone then I do to, without even having to have met them. We spend a lot of time laughing together. We don't really fight because we are grown ups. We know that even when one of us is being annoying that it is driven by love. That makes everything cool.

So I spend a lot of time on my own but a lot of time with people. I read and write a lot. I work a little too much. I spend so much time texting and talking on the phone that I had to sign up for the Optus Extreme User plan. But then I spend so much time in silence that a weekend day can pass and I've not spoken a single word. All of these contradictions are the sum of what makes me happy.

Maybe I am a hedonist or selfish or narcissistic or all the things that I worry about in my head. Things that people said in passing or that I heard in something they said. Maybe I am generous, loving and kind like my friends and family describe me as. Maybe I'm a little of all of them.

Either way, this makes me happy.

My life is not a series of adaptations. It is a series of conscious steps involving trying different sides of my life that has resulted in me being very happy and comfortable in a lifestyle that sometimes makes others uncomfortable. It is best to understand that I live each day to honour who I am and live my ethos. This makes me not just happy but content.

I often feel like an appropriate mix of comfortable conformism and antisocial complacent genius but I like that mix.

Friendzones and Fury

This afternoon, a male friend told me that men and women can not be friends. He is a little upset about what he sees as me putting him in the friendzone. I don't know about all these stoopid rules. I have a lot of friends, male and female. We can all be friends IMHO. If we go through life assuming everyone of the preferred sex wants to bonk us then that would be just strange. Instead, I choose to have lovely friends and let life be what it is.

How I Learnt to Concentrate Again

Many years ago now, I went through a bout of clinical depression. That sickness killed my concentration span. I could not read more than one or two pages of any kind of book before feeling sleepy. As soon as I put the book down, I was alert again.

My concentration span was pathetic and not improving.

In October 2012, I watched a badly shot video of Joe Kraus from Google Ventures who introduced the idea of Gap Time and "Slow Tech" to me.

The basis of the idea is that we live in a world of constant distraction and that paired with our evolutionary tendency to respond to stimulus has resulted in us heightening that skill and reducing our concentration spans. Technology in particular has been a culprit in this decline.

His fix for this was to suggest that we take time to not be distracted. Down time for your brain. That meant not picking up my phone when I was sitting waiting for someone at a cafe; not turning on music or a podcast in all my down time; and simply letting my brain spend time background processing.

Since taking on board this approach and spending a lot of time not doing anything with my brain, my concentration span is quite amazing. After 6 months, I could read up to 200 pages without feeling drained or distracted. After 18 months, I can read a book cover to cover without pausing... at least when I have the time to do so.

For me, that is a quantification of how my mind has improved by taking the time to let it rest. Not watching TV or Facebooking but actually taking time to do nothing. Distraction is not a good thing, at least not at the rates we allow it in our lives.

Take some time to lie on the couch and stare at the ceiling or drive to work without the radio on. It will change you.

Love Letters

I wrote you a love letter.

I pressed the delete key until my pointer finger tingled.

I miss you. That is all.

Many Things

I've been through many things in my life.

It is true that there are many people who walk a simpler path and that I bring on certain situations upon myself.

It took me many years to work out why this might be the case. I looked to discrimination based on many of the minority groups I am in but that only explained the disadvantage. I looked to my choices to see if I was making bad ones on purpose. It wasn't a self destructive streak and years of therapy made me accept that.

Finally, I realised that things happen in my life because I choose to participate. I dive in to life head first. I fall in love. I take a chance. I change my situation to adopt an oppirtunity.

Some people die young and are not buried until they are old.

That will not be me.

I will not look towards the winter of my life with dread. I will not exist in the summer of my life and hope for moments of spring. No, each season will be the best that I can have and have the best of me that I can give.

Maybe that means I fall on my arse regularly but I also experience an overall level of happiness and contentment that a lot of people don't.

For now, I shall continue on this path. Yes, despite the downs. Always for the ups.

A Happy Death

Book 12 of 2014 appears a month after the last book I read. Yes, I have been slack and not actually finishing anything I start.

In this case, A Happy Death is the last of  Camus' books for me to read. That is both saddening and a prompt to re-read those ones I love and that changed my life.

As usual, I'm left with too much to think about after finishing one of his books. There are so many lines that fit perfectly in to what is happening in my life and my own search for happiness in life, while I am unable to feel the connection of love that others so readily feel.

"He discovered the cruel paradox by which we always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage"

When I started this book, it felt too much like my favourite of his, The Outsider. However, it took a different path. Maybe one that was a lot more acceptable to readers when Camus was younger. The Outsider is still a better book but a different one.

The in-depth exploration of suicide (assisted or not) and self-imposed exile is something I connected to deeply. A need to rebel against everything you should do by destroying yourself is a hard subject to discuss and not scare people away with. Although he writes in a scattered way, the way Camus wields words will always make me listen and not allow me to put down his books.

You have to read something of his. This may not be the book but it is an insight in to the man, 100 years after his birth. Although, I adore everything he has ever written... I do worry what people may think of me for that :)

This may not be the Camus book you should start with but certainly one to read on your Algerian existentialist absurdism journey. At least it is on mine.

If that is too much for you, start by watching the Big Lebowski. At least you'll understand why I always sigh and say "obviously, you're not a golfer."

Should I read this? Yeah, it is short, perspicacious and beautiful. Like me.
What did I learn? “Yes, I'm happy, in human terms.”